Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
Sometimes, there is a better wheel. Sometimes, a market has an 800 lbs gorilla that could use a little toppling. And yes, sometimes, I use inane marketing drivel when I can’t think of any better way to get into an article.
But see? Now we’ve made it through the intro. So I can tell you about PingGadget, a new Portland startup that’s looking to take the best of Twitter’s short format and combine it with Foursquare-esque location information to deliver a new microblogging platform. Read More
When Shizzow announced that the startup—the foray into becoming a full-fledged company—is returning to the realm of side project
One of my favorite things about having worked on Silicon Florist for more than two years is watching the progress people are making. And watching how things change. I’ve been lucky enough to watch ideas, events, and companies come and go—and I’ve had the chance to document their stories. It’s never something I intended to do. It just kind of happened.
Sometimes those stories are happy. Sometimes they’re not. But they’re always good stories. The latest story I’ve had the pleasure of documenting as it went full circle? The story of Shizzow. Read More
And while the site had been running of its own volition, a recent mishap inspired Ryan to begin redesigning and restructuring the site. Today, that work resulted in the launch of a brand new Foodgeeks.
[HTML2]Many of you know Ryan Snyder as one of the folks behind Shizzow, the Portland-based location-sharing app. But what you may not know is that before Shizzow—way, way before, in fact—he was the guy behind Foodgeeks, a popular site designed to help folks share, rate, and generally geek out about recipes and food.
And while the site had been running of its own volition, a recent mishap inspired Ryan to begin redesigning and restructuring the site. Today, that work resulted in the launch of a brand new Foodgeeks. Read More
So where are the best places in Portland Oregon to cowork with coffee wifi and cohorts? Here are ten choices for your coffee shop coworking pleasure, with a couple of bonus suggestions.
[Editor: Thanks for swinging by! Unfortunately, this post is severely out-of-date. But fear not, gentle reader. There’s a new and improved resource for coffee, wifi, and coworking here in Portland, Oregon.]
[HTML1]Admittedly, we in the Portland Web, Mobile, blogging, and startup scene are a bit of a nomadic bunch. Whether finding some place to camp out in between meetings or hunkering down to crank out code for hours on end, folks around these parts are always looking for a good spot to work—preferably with an infusion of caffeine nearby. And sometimes, it’s nice to have some peers around for bouncing ideas or simply just a little company.
So where are the best places in Portland to cowork with coffee, wifi, and cohorts? Here are ten choices for your coffee shop coworking pleasure, with a couple of bonus suggestions of up and coming spots. Read More
no doubt that Portland, Oregon, is one of the most beer-o-phile-ish towns in the world. We’ve got our bevy of microbreweries, our randomly stocked beer groceries, our brewers’ festivals, and any number of folks working to keep us informed about just what’s happening in the world of beer.
There’s no doubt that Portland, Oregon, is one of the most beer-o-phile-ish towns in the world. We’ve got our bevy of microbreweries, our randomly stocked beer groceries, our brewers’ festivals, and any number of folks working to keep us informed about just what’s happening in the world of beer.
That said, there’s always room for more beer-oriented stuff around here. Enter Portland’s own Taplister‘s new iPhone app Beer Signal—an app that could have more of those beer discussions happening in person. Read More
I know you’re busy. Updating Twitter, blogging, running around from coffee shop to coffee shop, updating Shizzow. The list goes on and on.
If only there were some way to combine a few of those things to save you a little time.
Well, we can’t move the coffee shops any closer together, but the folks at Shizzow have come up with a way to keep your location—and your Twitter friends—up-to-date on your latest whereabouts.
Thanks to the magic of OAuth, Shizzow now shouts to Twitter.
Simply enable the feature in your External Preferences and you’ll be able to post your location update and shout to Twitter from within Shizzow.
Just want to update your location and not bug your Twitter followers? Don’t add a message. No message, no tweet.
As you may have seen, I got to test the feature down at SXSW while it was still top secret, and it performed flawlessly.
If only AT&T had performed as flawlessly, Shizzow would have been invaluable at SXSW. Unfortunately, with the Edge network cratering under the sheer girth of iPhone traffic in Austin, neither Shizzow nor Twitter managed to live up to their potential.
But now that we’re back in the land of the speedy connections, Shizzow will no doubt shine. And since many of us monitor Twitter far more than we monitor Shizzow, maybe just maybe we’ll have some more of those chance meetings that Shizzow was designed to facilitate.
For more information on the new feature, see the Shizzow post. To enable the feature for yourself, go to your Shizzow profile.
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There are a number of folks from Portland and the Silicon Forest headed down to Austin, Texas, this week for SXSW. And while I’ve heard about a number of those folks anecdotally, I thought it might be helpful for all of us if we compiled a definitive list of Twitter accounts, so you can keep tabs on who’s doing what.
(Of course, to keep tabs on who’s doing what where you’ll want to sign up for Shizzow, too.)
So here’s who I have so far. Please comment if I missed you, if I missed someone you know is going, if you just signed up for a Twitter account, or if I added you thinking you were going but you’re not. I’ll make sure to update the post as comments dictate.
The current list of Twitter accounts for Portland or Silicon Forest attendees at SXSW includes:
Tentative: Nate DiNiro, Alex H Williams (see comment below)
BONUS: SXSW, SXSW Guide, SXSW is easy, and Sched.
Again, if you need to be added or removed, please comment below.
I’m looking forward to seeing all of you down at SXSW.
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We’ve all been watching Shizzow come into its own, from its early beginnings as a Portland-only tool to its expanding private beta to its API.
It’s been a true Portland success story. And very much embraced as a Portland tool by the Web community around here.
But there comes a time when every little startup needs to leave the nest. When it needs to spread its wings and explore the broader market.
Today, Shizzow goes national with a public launch of their social location service.
According to the announcement:
Today we are announcing the public launch of Shizzow, a location-based friend finder where you can declare your location, and it will notify all of your friends so that they may come join you for a drink or a cup of coffee. Shizzow has been in private beta since August 2008 with invites open only to a limited number of people in Oregon, California, and Washington. Anyone in the United States can now sign up for Shizzow with no invite required.
Why now? Shizzow has big plans for SXSW—the annual geek get together in Austin, Texas—where people are constantly trying to figure out “Where the heck are you?”
You may remember that Twitter took off at SXSW in 2007 by helping people find one another. Since then, everyone has had aspirations of recreating that magic. Shizzow has a good chance to do so, given that it’s even better suited for that “Where the heck are you?” task. Plus, they’re promising some features specifically targeted at the SXSW crowd.
Not only is Shizzow opening up, they’re also unveiling some of the apps that have been developed using the Shizzow API. And opening the public beta of that API.
Here’s a look at some of the apps that have already taken advantage of the API:
IceCondor is an android application that allows you to follow people and events in real-time. IceCondor takes advantage of map coordinates embedded in RSS feeds (called GeoRSS feeds) and allows them to appear as red markers on googlemaps. IceCondor works with multiple services including Brightkite, Shizzow, and Upcoming.org. Built by @donpdonp.
Shizzeeps.com shows you which shizzow users (known as shizzeeps) are congregating where at the moment. It also allows you to see their shout messages, and even send your own ephemeral message to the group at a particular place. Shizzeeps also offers a Twitter service: follow @shizzeeps to get updates every 15 minutes. Built by @crunchysue.
An iPhone client with list and map views of people and places, detection of nearby places to shout from, ability to auto-shout, and more. You currently need to build the Shizzup client from the source code to use it. Built by @wajiii.
A simple Shizzow application for Android to quickly find out where your friends are, or find out who’s nearby and listen to them. See their locations on a map, or their recent shout history. Browse nearby places, search for places by name and tag, add to your favorites, and shout from them. Automatically detect your location using GPS/wifi, or manually set it on a map for finer control. You currently need to build the f’shizzow client from the source code to use it. Built by @petercowan.
Baken is an Android (and iPhone, eventually) app that automatically finds nearby locations from Shizzow’s database. It also provides much of the functionality found on m.shizzow.com. Matt also has plans to take the app in new directions in the near future. Built by @mattg.
Exciting times for the bootstrapped Portland startup. Here’s hoping they continue to soar. And I’ll be sure to report on how they’re received by the crowd down at SXSW.
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When it comes to social media and community management, few folks in Portland—arguably few folks in the world—understand it as well as Dawn Foster, @geekygirldawn.
For those of you who haven’t had a chance to meet her, Dawn is a community management powerhouse. She has more than 13 years of experience in technology and software with expertise in open source software, web 2.0, social media, blogging, and community building, working at companies like Intel and Jive Software. She’s also a co-founder and board member for Legion of Tech. Dawn currently consults on social media and community management and serves as the community manager for Shizzow.
So when I heard she was working on a book that was going to give me access to some of her insights, I got a wee bit giddy.
And now, it’s available.
Entitled Companies and Communities: Participating without being sleazy, the 80-page eBook touches on topics like blogging, Twitter, social networks, and customer-centric corporate communities.
Companies and Communities is focused on helping your company get real business value out of participating in online communities and social media. This 80 page eBook contains practical advice and suggestions for how companies can engage with online communities and social media sites.
How practical? Well, it’s full of things which we—as individual social media participants—may think are obvious, but are far from it. Especially for corporations. Things like:
Not all about you
Social media is a conversation, which is by definition two-way. In other words, it is not all about you, your company, your products or your agenda. It involves listening and participating in the broader community of people. Don’t just expect people to help you; jump in and help other people in areas where you have some expertise. If all you do is pimp your products without adding to the broader conversation, people will lose interest in you pretty quickly.
The eBook is delivered in PDF format. It’s available for $19.99. To purchase your copy, visit Dawn’s Fast Wonder Blog eBook section. Or, if you want to test drive it first, there’s an excerpt available.
I’m already thumbing through my own copy. Now, I just have to figure out how to get the author to autograph an eBook.
Portland-based Shizzow—the service designed to help you find and meet up with friends as quickly and easily as possible—has had a good run in the Portland area. But now, they’re feeling the need to stretch their horizons a bit.
And where better for a cool Web-based and SMS-friendly app to stretch than the Bay Area? Um. Well, nowhere, really. So, starting today, Shizzow has decided to expand its “heretofore relegated to the Silicon Forest” user base to include our friends in San Francisco and the surrounding area.
Now, granted, our friends to the south get to test this kind of thing more often than most. Why should they take a look at Shizzow? According to the folks at Shizzow—arguably the best ones to respond—there are a number of reasons their service is different.
But the one that strikes me—an active Shizzow user—as the most poignant is this one:
We developed Shizzow to solve a specific need: the desire to find our friends and hang out with them. The other services had so much clutter that we weren’t able to effectively solve our need using any of the existing location-based applications.
If you’re in the Silicon Forest and haven’t had a chance to try Shizzow yet, drop a comment below and I’ll get you on board. Same goes for our Shizzow neighbors in the Silicon Valley. Or you can always go straight to the source.